News Trend An Invitation To Dinner|Actual

A 'before' shot of the lasagna I made for Aqil and Brian. I tried a new recipe which met with rave reviews. Don't worry...I left out the pork.

On Saturday night, I invited two friends over to join my family for dinner.

They arrived around seven and we sat right down to the table.

We ate a lot of dinner.

We talked.

We played a card game.

We took a deep breath and then plowed into dessert.

We watched a movie.

We talked during the slow bits.

We finished and stretched and mulled over the movie and slowly shook ourselves back into the real world

Then I packed them up some leftovers

And my guests said goodnight.

Now. There are two interesting things about this evening that keep circling around in my head.

One:

This was a perfectly ordinary night. I've hosted my fair share of dinner guests over the years, and the script generally follows this same pattern. There was nothing unusual or strange or even the least bit out of the norm during this particular evening.

Two:

This was an extraordinary night. My guests were not neighbors or school buddies or a family from church but two college freshman born on the other side of the world.

Aqil is the cousin of my best Malaysian friend, and Brian is his Taiwanese/Swiss roommate. The guys met while attending an international high school in Kuala Lumpur, and share the experience of growing up in several major cities around the world before landing themselves here in Seattle at the University of Washington.

Both present themselves as articulate, interesting, and thoughtful young men. They are funny, honest, amazingly well-traveled, and super easy to get along with. My family and I find their company thoroughly enjoyable and they seem to like us too.

And on one hand, it's ridiculously clear that all of our differences really amount to nothing at all.

But on the other hand, this world is full of people screaming about differences as if there is no way on God's green earth that we can ever overcome them and find a way to get along.

Maybe the people of this world could solve all the drama by simply inviting each other to dinner more often.

The evening passed by so agreeably that I entirely forgot to take more photos until the guys had gone  home and all that was left was me and this 'after' sink full of dirty dishes.

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More stories about my friend, Aqil:

An Invitation To Dinner

Aqil's Chicken

Chicken Drumsticks

Ready To Launch

An All-American Dinner

Moondawg For The Win